Played my first online game

After only ever playing against the AI (can beat moderate pretty regularly, can get absolutely wrecked by Hard pretty regularly), decided to finally try online

Played a ranked 1v1 on Gold Rush and 2 open lobby team “noob” games.

And it was awesome.

The 1v1 I tried tower rushing which he knocked down. He seemed to be getting more military out, but I had a better economy going so could get some decent blacksmith upgrades. He went archer and m&a but my scouts and eventual knights mopped them up and his villagers on the gold and he resigned. Utterly satisfying.

The team games; one was good. 3v3 on BF, one of my teammates resigned almost immediately. I managed to rush my neighbour with archers and force an early resign, my teammate did something similar on the other side and then we closed in and finished off the last guy in Castle. Teammate carried me a little bit, but I mostly held my own.

Second one not so much, because it wasn’t very noob’y. Me and one opponent noob with 6 pretty good players in a 4x4 coastal. And I got Random’d into playing Indians. Which as an Indian myself might have been a pleasant happenstance, but practically wasn’t great cause I have no idea what to do with them, and they seem a bit useless. I was on the flank, got battered for a long time, then started lagging because of the thousand units on the screen at any one time, and eventually we called it a day. Not quite as satisfying - maybe will stick to smaller games to avoid the lag.

S/O this sub for all the suggestions to get online! I now need to break my habit of pausing against the AI every time something happens that I’m unprepared for, which is every 2 minutes.

Any advice for how to keep an economy going whilst attacking? I assume hot keys and just more practice? Cause that’s the main struggle.